Mika Soderman

It is my sad duty to inform members of the death of our friend Mika, last night.
Mika was a Subject Matter Expert, who organized Camp Get Tough in 2005. He attended numerous of our seminars, and we worked together in RSA.
Our thoughts are with his partner Linda, and his stepson Rasmus.
A true Viking, his place in Valhalla is assured.
RIP Mika.


Mika teaching in Liverpool


Den, Clint and Mika in Jo'burg


Den, Marcus and Mika in Sweden

Devastating news. I still remember walking into a hotel in Liverpool and seeing Mika occupying more of a sofa than any one man had the right to and knowing, instantly, that he was one of 'our people', an archetype made flesh. A gentleman who was always good company, generous with his time and knowledge and a storyteller par excellence. I still remember the photo sequences he made outside an uncharacteristically rough nightclub called "The Hole". I'm very sorry to hear of his passing. Valhalla grows richer at our expense.

Very sad news , my thought are with his family

I sat in prayer and meditation for Mika this morning, and this is what i was shown: He was struggling and lashing out all around him in the spirit realms, then he was surrounded with angelic warriors and carried on a bier to the light and the Portal of Valhalla. When he got to the other side, he looked like a Viking Berserker (very appropriate) with a WTF? Look on his face. Probably surprised to find himself in Heaven instead of Hell. He recognized me and waved from the Other Side. Last I saw him, he was surrounded by scantily clad Valkyries and neck deep in the mead.

Mika. He’ll be fine. And he’ll be waiting to greet all of us, his brothers in arms, on the Other Side. And, he’s not too far if you need to call in the angelic artillery. Mika, he always loved a fight...and still does.

Blessings in the Light, Mika! We’ll all tip a glass to you tonight. Fruit tea in mine, bro, and I’ll see if I can find some from Knivsta.

Cheers, m

I just heard this info today. I met him at two Carl Cestari Combatives seminars in the US in the early 2000s. I also chatted with him online on facebook. I am very saddened.

Very sad about Mika such a great man RIP

Sad news. RIP Mika.

Giles

I first met Mika when he came over for the first International in 2003, or was it 1903? It was a very busy weekend for me with organizing and presenting, and I didn't really have a chance to chat to the guys until the post-training-scoff [PTS] at our favourite Chinese restaurant. I was seated with Mika on my left, and Mr K on my right, and spent one of the most enjoyable evenings I've ever had talking about Combatives with these two Vikings.
Since then I have enjoyed Mika's company many times; in Liverpool, Sweden and RSA.
In 2009 Marcus presented his famed Mind's Eye Shooting Program in Sweden. After the training a group of us gathered in a local restaurant for the traditional PTS. Besides Marcus there was Rickard and Mika from Sweden, Jim an Englishman resident in Germany and myself. We did nothing but laugh as we swapped funny stories. At one point I glanced around and realised that all other diners were silent. Sweden is a pretty staid place and such laughter was somewhat unusual at dinner.
Mika has left a lot of great memories and will be missed in the Community.
Clint sent these photos from our Police Instructor Course 2007

Kuya Marcus, it's Les from NY--and hello to you all. Mika S. was both kind and encouraging with every interaction I have ever had with him, online and in the real world. Fierce, yes--and funny, and warm. I'm grateful to have gotten to know him, even a little bit. My heart and thoughts are with his family, and the global brotherhood that cared for him.

Incredibly sad; RIP big man.

As Yoda would say "there's been a disturbance in the force".

Mika has been taken from us too soon but will live with many of us forever.

R.I.P warrior.

Hi, i am Mika´s stepson.
He was my hero and the man i consider my dad and someone who taught me a great deal about life and martial arts and how to be a man.
He had his ups and downs in life, but i miss him dearly

Could someone if you have the time, share a story that you have shared with Mika through the years?
It would mean alot.

Best regards/ Rasmus Mattsson

I first met Mika at a combatives seminar put on by the late Carl Cestari in 2002.

Carl demonstrated some hold.   I think it was some type of guillotine choke. Then he had some woman try to do it on Mika.  And she is trying it and putting more pressure and more pressure.

Mika tells her, "It's all right. You can go harder."

So she tries harder and puts more pressure. It's not having an effect.

Mika tells her to go as hard as she can, not to worry, that he will tap if it is too much.

So she is cranking harder and harder and getting tired. Of course it did not have an effect on Mika and did not make him tap.

So Carl asked the audience why it did not work.  The answer was because she was trying to do it on Mika.  Mika being big and strong with a huge neck it was not going to work. The lesson was that not everything will work on everyone.

I remember the first seminar when I met Mika when he came to the US in 2002. He impressed everyone who met him.  He was big and strong and could hit hard and was knowledgeable and experienced.  But he had no ego and was fun to talk to and had a great personality.

I was friends with Mika on Facebook and we messaged each other from time to time. I am sorry that I did not message him more. Not that it would have changed anything, but often we don't really appreciate someone until they are gone.

I don't want to be out of place, but I am wondering if it would be okay for me to post a link to this thread in the general section, since some people might not read this section as frequently.

Good idea about linking to the General section, I'll do it.

At Camp Get Tough Mika demonstrated Axehands on a small bag, pounding away impressively...



Afterwards I had a go, and hit what seemed to be a solid block of stone. The bag held tightly-packed gravel, and I felt the shock right up to my neck.It did encourage me to work on Axehand conditioning.

R.I.P. Mika.

As Mika was a regular on the seminars and we all spend time together at the hotelbar and restaurant, stories will be plenty.

I met Mika on the first international in 2003. The seminar was concluded by a scenario where the seminar attendee was attacked by an assailant in a padded suit.

For most of us it took a couple of blows before the padman went down. Mika walked up and as soon as the padman made his move Mika lashed out with a massive blow taking the padman out.

The video of Mika at the First International is now online here

Memories of Mika —

Hello Rasmus (and forum friends — hey Lester!).

I haven’t done anything in a forum for years, but in memory of our friend Mika I’m honored to put a few words down. Rasmus, and Linda, what you both need to know and hear is that Mika always loved the two of you far more than he may ever have put into words. A Finnish-Swede by definition doesn’t say much. I remember doing a training in Sweden, and Mika asked me how I managed to get people so stressed out. I told him, “It’s easy with Swedes and Finns, Mika. You just make them talk to each other.”

I first met Mika online in the old Den forum on Geoff Thompsons late and very great forum. What a wealth of talent, minds and information there! All the contributors and participants leavened with old school courtesy, manners and respect. It was a pleasure while it lasted. Mika was always interested in the research work I was doing, questioned it rigorously (which I always welcome) and ran all of it through his significant experience filter. I enjoyed our online dialogues, and when we met in the UK in person, and later in Sweden, I so enjoyed the long hours talking.

Mika was, first last and always, a Scandinavian warrior, someone who truly channeled the Viking Berserker in his combative applications. Berserker meant originally “those who wear the bear’s skin” — and that meant taking on the attributes of the bear: ferocity, protection, inquisitiveness. Mika was all that in spades. One of the things many who knew Mika didn’t know about him was his deep interest in the spiritual aspects of life and martial arts. We shared a common interest in that and spent many long hours discussing and debating how the spiritual aspects of combative training always eventually surface in any serious practitioner, and what the metaphor of “defending the self” and “defending others” embedded in martial practice meant to someone who was interested in delving into the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of combat.

I loved his pragmatic take on things, and his willingness to politely (sometimes not so politely) challenge anything he was presented with in form of instruction, knowledge or communication. We enjoyed exchanges of belief about edged weapon combat often. We both were gifted with grandfathers who were blade masters and human life takers — mine in the Philippines, his in the Finnish resistance to the Nazis. I just remembered this morning, looking out at sub zero weather and falling snow, our discussion about the difference between Filipino martial arts edged weapon combat and the knife combatives practiced by a tough Finnish butcher during World War 2. We both started laughing at the same time when Mika pointed out that the edge and flow of Filipino blade arts relied on lightly clothed humans and the ability to carry openly big blades, while the knife combat practiced by the Finnish resistance needed to work against big men very heavily clothed and carrying firearms. We immediately set down our hot drinks (fruit tea for him, black coffee as always for me) and started experimenting with variations on our core skill sets.

He was brilliant that way, innovative and absolutely ruthless in paring out “bullshit from grass eaters” as he liked to say.

I love and appreciate nuance in human beings, and Mika was exquisitely nuanced. He could be, and was when necessary, unemotionally brutal if going hands on with someone. He was also, at the same time, a deeply deeply sensitive man, who gave much thought to the feelings of others he cared about and respected, though he would never admit to such — that wasn’t his way. He’d show it in a different fashion. When I was in the worst part of my recovery from long cancer, multiple operations and hellish legal issues, and saved from wallowing it by Dennis who dragged me out of my sick bed and made me carry my knowledge back out into the world (thank you, Den — you are always seen and appreciated for that) — Mika took the time to, in his own way, help in a fashion that many never saw. He listened. He lightened things with a laugh or a verbal poke to puncture self pity. He shared his knowledge about healing and physical training (which was encyclopedic).

He was, when it counted, a great friend, as great friends always are.

I remember talking with him when he fell in love with Linda and began to explore what fatherhood might feel like with you in his life, Rasmus. He loved you both dearly, and he took the role of your primary male figure very very seriously. We spent long hours talking about our own fathers, his and mine, and how we had to learn to modify those brutal lessons and allow some of the sensitivity we’d developed in our lives to color the relationships, in the very best way, we wanted with our sons.

Mika was a great man, who tried his best, did his best, in all that he tackled: from martial arts to soldier to operator to security to friend to teacher to husband to father.

We’re diminished, right now, by his loss. But we carry his memory. And to a Viking, there is nothing greater than having a tale told in his memory and his honor. And he lives on in the lessons he taught and the memories he created.

I’m remembering when he and I had spent hours talking over some advanced shooting concepts, Rasmus. And Mika said, “Well, let’s go do it.” He went and fetched your mother, took me and her out to the gun range, handed us several pistols, a case of ammo, and set up some steel pepper poppers. Then he backed away to give Linda room to breath. I ran your mom through some experimental exercises to accelerate her target acquisition. After an hour, I put a hood over your mom’s head with a loaded pistol in her hand, had her go through a sensory expansion exercise we’d done together, and watched her shoot (and hit) three steel pepper poppers spaced out from 7-10 yards. 100% hits with a bag over her head. I turned to see Mika with one of those huge (and very rare) grins on his face and his thumb up. He came over, shaking his head, congratulated your mom, and then said, “Okay. Now teach me.”

I did. And I was honored to have done so.

Never intimidated by knowledge, always willing to challenge, always willing to do something new and way out of the box. That was Mika. Spiritual, smart, tough beyond most comprehension — and, when he’d had a few beers, or if around those who knew him well, funny as hell with that very dry Finnish/Swedish wit.

He’s missed.

I’d say I’m sad now, but I’m not. I know he’s crossed over (see my earlier post) and I know he’s happy and healthy and well on the Other Side. He’s probably laughing and shaking his head and holding up a beer in all our directions. So to those of you who knew him, and those who did not but would honor a warrior, tip a glass for Mika tonight.

He’ll be doing the same in your direction.

Cheers, m

Great memories, Marcus
I still have a tin of that fruit tea that Mika introduced us to...




Here's Mika and Marcus outside the excellent bakery in Knivsta

I heard today from another friend of Mika’s. “K” is well known in our community as a combatives practitioner, instructor, operator, warrior. He knew Mika well (and Den, he wants you to get in touch with him when you can). K was kind enough to send me this poem by the famous World War 2 Norwegian poet, Nordahl Grieg. I had posted it on my blog as a memorial to Conrad, one of our other Combatives brothers from South Africa, who fell in Jordan defending a number of his colleagues from a terrorist infiltrator. K has read it over all of his fallen brothers in his unit:

“The Best”

“Det er de beste som dør.

De sterke, de rene av hjertet
Som ville og våget mest;
Rolige tok de avskjed,”

Humbly translated by K to:

“It is the best who die.

The strong and clean at heart,
Who wanted and dared the most,
quietly they said goodbye.”

Den, I look suspiciously like John Malkovich as Marvin Boggs in RED and RED 2 in that picture you just posted. “Can we get pancakes now?” Mika would be taking the piss out of me forever over that....

Marcus
That poem is so apt.
Mr K contacted me, and we caught up on news.
Cheers,
Den

A Scottish gift = Mika asked and I was pleased to provide, "Haggis and Irn-bru".

He said his mother loved the Haggis but she wasn't getting his Irn-bru.

He also tried introducing me to chewing tobacco, that was definately not for me.

Happy days.

During one of my trips to Sweden, Mika very kindly gave me this beautiful knife...



.... which I treasure even more now.

Mika showing his crushing power...